


Twenty One Years In Review

by FrogFacey



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Strilondes have red hair because I live for that shit, catch me venting through characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 03:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17256851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrogFacey/pseuds/FrogFacey
Summary: The fact of the matter was, your hand was always absent when people walked in.Discovering and coping with internalised homophobia.





	Twenty One Years In Review

You can’t remember your first crush on a boy, not entirely. You can always sort of figure it out though, if you thought hard enough. The boys you liked were always the ones you wanted to be. If you stared at the tv screen as a grubby little kid thinking about how cool it would be to grow up like them, it was almost certain you had a crush on them and didn’t realise. You remember Spiderman though, Spiderman was cool. 

You never owned any of those comics. You watched the tv shows, sure but the only comics you ever really had were Batman. Batman was cool and all but nothing could compare to the likes of Spidey.

Maybe it was because you related to him? Shitty apartment, single carer, scrawny. 

That was all bullshit because you remember being annoyed when he kissed MJ. “Spidey doesn’t need a girlfriend!” you decided, which was really just little kid speak for “Spidey doesn’t need a girlfriend because it should be me!”

 

You can’t quite remember when you realised it either. You know that at some point you thought you were straight and then you didn’t. You couldn’t remember where you were, what you were doing or why the realisation hit. Just once you were and then you weren't.

You maybe liked John though. You couldn't really tell while you were wrapped up in feelings with Jade and fighting to stay alive and panic attacks. That was a good frame of reference though.

You remember looking at Bro's body, the waves of emotions, mostly conflicting. You remember not really feeling anything at first, forgetting about it until you spoke to Terezi again. Until you spoke to her in person. 

You remember your first realisation that maybe something was wrong. Not just _weird_ like you'd first thought but _wrong_.

Because you were with Karkat and he mentioned something about some guy he liked when he was a kid “Just a dumb wiggler crush” in his words. You laughed and Karkat didn’t understand why.

“What’s so funny, dipshit? What’s your glorious input?”

You shrugged.

You didn’t know why it was funny. It just was. Liking guys was funny.

Liking guys was wrong.

You remember feeling guilty about it. Thinking about John or Karkat or fucking _Spiderman_ should be done in private. No one needed to know that. It wasn’t any of their fucking business, you shouldn’t shove it down their throats.

You remember dreaming about Bro. You remember feeling something, the prickly sense of fear. You remember him laughing at you, you remember feeling gross.

You talked to Rose, feeling kind of weird about her dreamy eyes at Kanaya. Dreamy eyes which she herself never addressed which meant you had to slap her over the head with logic.

“She likes you.” You said.

“But she’s like that with everyone.”

“She’s different with you.”

“We have a system.”

“You’re an idiot.”

She raised an eyebrow and glanced over at you “You’re still caught up with Texas.”

You didn’t quite understand what she meant until you said something about Bro to Karkat and felt your throat close up.

 

The first panic attack on the meteor was a wild fucking ride. You spent fifteen minutes in a corner huddled into a ball sobbing onto your knees. It was especially difficult considering the fact that you were still doped up on that “Striders don’t cry” bullshit and also hadn’t slept for a day or two. Rose was the first one to actually find you, standing in the doorway and just observing. You had promoted yourself to lying in the fetal position on the floor. She promoted herself to sitting on a stray cushion a little ways away from your feet.

You both vowed not to talk about it.

But it was a thing that happened.

And it was a thing that continued apparently. Randomly at first before you got the hang of it all. If getting the hang of it meant avoiding doorways and hanging around in single rooms you knew were completely worry free. You think Karkat started to notice. Or Rose had told him. 

You know that you eventually started to pick up on what was setting you off, it was the small things that reminded you of home. Which would have been a nice sentiment if it was in any way positive.

You didn’t like when Vriska burst into the room unannounced, you didn’t like the clanking in certain rooms, you got anxious and twitchy if the cupboard that was always full of snacks, human or trollian, ran empty.

You pinpointed certain things, left some others and figured more and more things out.

And you kept thinking about Bro.

 

You can’t remember when exactly it was that you started acting like a normal human being. You laughed when Kanaya offered to paint your nails, you laughed at Terezi saying she was fine looking like a dude, you thought it was weird that Rose kept thinking about girls (“Because you think it’s pornographic, Dave.” didn’t hit you until later), you pulled faces at Karkat talking about the girls and the boys from his movies in the same dreamy tone.

And then suddenly something flipped.

It obviously wasn’t overnight, it didn’t just take you thinking “Oh. I don’t want to be an asshole anymore.” and suddenly you weren’t.

But you don’t quite know when it started happening.

You didn’t apologize to Karkat exactly, just sat closer to him when you watched movies and didn’t make any comments about who he thought was cute. Rose sat next to you and explained in detail her own “gay panic” which painfully and shamelessly reflected your own.

It hurt to open up and it hurt to talk to people but you remember, with great fondness, the first time you ever accepted it.

“Obviously he and his friend should have been the ones to get together, she has zero chemistry with him.” 

You were watching a human movie. It wasn’t any good, Karkat agreed. You spent the whole time ribbing on it.

“Yeah,” you said, before you could think “He’s cuter, too.”

“Excuse me?” Karkat turned to you, his shoulder knocking into your arm. Your arm was draped over the side of the couch, nearly around him.

“I mean it’s an earth movie so it’s a given that the guy is going to get with the girl and it’s going to be celebrated regardless of how shitty the actual relationship is, that’s just how earth movies are. You’re right though, they’d be fucking sweet together.”

“Second point,” Karkat said, sitting closer to you, almost in disbelief “You think he’s cute?”

You shrugged “ _Cuter._ ”

“You’re making fun of me,” He furrowed his eyebrows “Aren’t you?”

 

You remember kissing Karkat. How could you possibly fucking forget?

He was ranting about something and you got lost staring at him and…

You kissed.

Karkat’s hand was behind your neck, yours on his shoulder and you felt sick. You stayed together so much longer than you needed to, pressed against each other, pulling back to just sit and breathe and stare at each other before one of you wanted it back just badly enough.

Your stomach swirled and you wanted to get away. Your gut was screaming “What if he sees you?” and your head was screaming “He can’t, he’s gone.”

You were both silent. You were quiet when you each scampered your separate ways. 

You remember crying. Nothing dramatic, just a few tears. It felt so, so wrong but so right and you weren’t exactly sure if you still cared.

You decided you wanted to kiss him again. You decided now wasn’t the time.

 

You didn't realise how far you'd actually come until you saw yourself in a dream bubble.

Seeing dead Daves wasn't something that shocked you really, you made a point of avoiding it actually. Though this time it was kind of inevitable.

You ran nearly head first into each other. You'd had only one growth spurt in the last two years or so which made you about a head taller. You were tall to begin with and in your mind the growing was just excessive.

He looked up at you with almost disdain. His hair was slicked down, his shades were too big for his face, his cheeks were a nasty red from a fading sunburn, his shirt was just a little too baggy on him.

He looked at you and you looked at him. You had no idea that the change included physical.

Your own god jammies were tailor made for you. Or...What you'd be? They were big on you to begin with, you guessed it was the game's way of saying “You'll grow into them” and right now you just had to hike the pants up a little higher and you'd be gravy.

You hadn't actually touched your gel in a while, more than a couple of months maybe? Your hair always wanted to curl at the ends and the swooshy bit at your forehead hadn't actually made contact with your forehead since you stopped managing it. The whole thing swooshed and you guessed you just got tired of dealing with that.

“Sup,” He said, giving you a quick once over “How far did you get?”

“Uh,” you started, not really wanting to mention your current state of alive-ivity “The trolls are actually aliens, they’re pretty sick. Bugs and shit. They like dumb movies and eat gross food but they make good company.”

He took his shades off, wiped them on his shirt and you nearly shuddered watching his milky eyes study the ground beneath you. You wanted to ask what seeing as a ghost was like, but he thought you were a ghost and you didn't want to give that charade up.

“God tier huh?” His shades were back on, looking over your current attire “Hero of time.”

“Knight,” You finished for him “Got the outfit and everything.”

He shrugged “Doesn't fucking matter. We all end up in the same fucking cooking pot eventually right?”

“Sure, life is bleak and all that shit.” You nodded. Doing fucking peachy. You'd get the Oscar for sure. It was the Oscar wasn't it?

“Your hair looks dumb.” The slightest hint of a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.

“Uh,” you said intelligently “Yeah, ha, ran out of ghostly hair gel.”

“Right.”

You shifted.

The bubble was changing, shimmering at the edges, a numb humming starting a little ways towards the horizon. You thanked every single god ever.

Dave turned away from you, making a start towards a tree nearby “Yeah, you can take your whole aliveness and stick it.”

“Where the sun don't shine?” You finished. You didn’t realise you were that good at reading people. Maybe it was just because he was you and you were him.

“Fuck you.”

 

You held Karkat’s hand when you watched movies, you found yourself drifting off and waking up with your head on his thigh, you tangled your fingers in his hair. You were so grossly affectionate, the both of you.

You thought it was because you were both so touch starved. You sat down and Karkat would be next to you as soon as your ass met pillow. Karkat would be doing something and you’d lean against his shoulder.

Except as soon as someone was near the door you’d be gone.

At first you didn’t tell anyone, not even Rose. Kanaya was none the wiser, Terezi and Vriska were close to figuring it out. You made a point of avoiding Karkat when they were around.

Rose asked, of course she did. You nearly lied to her (“No, we’re bros. Bros do that all the time, you’re just pushing your own romantic lense onto us. Gross Lalonde, for shame.”) until a better part of your brain asked _Why?_

_Why were you hiding?_

She remained the only one who knew the entire meteor trip. She remained the only one who sat down and kept asking you why? Why? What was your problem?

And it didn’t matter how close you got to spilling every little thing to her, the one thing never changed. The fact of the matter was, your hand was always absent when people walked in.

 

Roxy's hair curled up at the edges, swooshing around her head in a way it was both flattering and looked like she'd just woken up three minutes ago. Her hair was an unnatural light pink, yours was an orangy red. You had the same curl she had. 

Roxy asked if you’d ever been in love, if you’d ever kissed anyone. You lied to her and Rose gave you a look. You gave her one back.

You liked Roxy, you wanted to stick around with her. Her grin bordered on infectious, her voice was just ridiculous enough. It was a breath of fresh air from the meteor, a breath of fresh air from the same people. Roxy told you about Dirk, about how he was as gay as they come. You braced yourself for meeting him.

Dirk was shorter than you, but not by a lot. His face was rounder than Bro’s, his head was devoid of dumb cool kid headwear, his shades were still perched on his nose. He carried himself differently than you remember Bro doing. He was hunched over, insecure, nothing like the guy too powerful to fear anything.

You jerked backwards when you first saw him, coughing and nodding at him to cover yourself.

But he wasn’t Bro, not by a long fucking shot. He was more like Rose than anything.

You dumped everything onto him. Maybe it was because you hadn’t had anyone who would understand for three years, maybe it was revenge. Maybe you wanted him, Bro or not, to understand the hell you’d been through since you were a kid. Maybe you wanted him to feel bad.

And he just…Got it. Dirk mentioned he was scared of becoming like Bro, that everyone said he was fine but they didn’t _know_. They didn’t get the full extent. That he’d already taken a step towards it with Jake.

You decided he was angsty and you hugged him. He hugged you back.

You took a deep breath and asked him, finally asked rather than sat and listened and answered, how he told everyone. He said he didn’t have to.

 

You want to be able to sling your arm around Karkat’s shoulder when you’re out. You want to take a trip down to whatever new ice cream joint manifested down the road. You want to kiss by the friday bonfire. You don’t want to care if Roxy whistles or if John giggles and makes gagging noises.

Karkat says he doesn’t care, it’s not a problem for him. You’re already able to hold hands around town, he’s alright with that.

You say you want to work on it, he says it’s not something you have to fix.

You wonder how you got so lucky.

**Author's Note:**

> First fic of 2019 and it's me dumping my own emotions onto Dave. Wooooooooo
> 
> Edit:  
> Yo fuck Hussie man I'm taking the fucking canon for myself byeeee


End file.
